I relish walking into a kitchen warm
with the aroma of fresh-baked bread. I savor the fragrance of honeysuckle when
it blossoms outside my window. I make a point to walk down the coffee aisle
where the scent of roasted beans lingers near the decanters. But chocolate . .
. there's nothing like stepping into a specialty shop where the fragrance of
fudge, toffee and truffles saturate the air.

Many fragrances attract us each day
– and because God created us in His image, it shouldn’t surprise us that our
Creator has His favorite fragrances, as well. One of them is prayer.

The psalmist wrote, "O Lord,
may my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be
like the evening sacrifice" (Psalm 141:2). Later, in the New Testament, the
apostle John saw a vision of four living creatures and twenty‑four elders around
God’s throne "holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers
of the saints" (Revelation 5:8).

God loves the fragrance of our
prayers, so why, when prayer or praise begins to flow from my lips, do I cut it
short before God has a chance to catch even a whiff? Because I talk myself into
believing I have other (more) important things to do.

How sad is that?

You might be familiar with the names
of prayer giants in church history such as St. Augustine, St. Therese of
Lisieux, Pope John Paul II, St. Padre Pio, St. Theresa of Avila, and Mother Teresa
– men and women who knew what it meant to spend hours in prayer.

Hours? What could anyone pray about
for so long? My mind tended to wander after only a few minutes. I doubt my
prayers during my first thirty-two years walking with Christ lasted ten minutes
at a time. Most ran less than five. So, when I discovered how long some men and
women in church history prayed, I was forced to ask myself, what did they have
that I didn’t?

I pondered that question a long time
before finally admitting to myself the truth – a truth I didn’t like: I left
the prayer closet so quickly because I'd not fallen in love with Jesus as much
as I liked to think I had. I left because I wanted to do something more
interesting or enjoyable – like watching television, eating, or taking a nap.

That's not at all easy to admit – to
you or to myself. It’s as if, for thirty‑two years, I stood on a beach, holding
a glass of water and believing I held everything I needed to experience a
maturing love for Christ. Hadn’t I read the Bible dozens of times? I shared my
faith, taught Sunday school, memorized long passages of Scripture, and had
daily devotional times with the Lord. How much deeper into the faith could a
person go?

Then I felt water lap at my feet.
When I turned, I saw an expanse of water as deep and wide as the Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon.

In his Catechism on Prayer, St. John
Vianney wrote: “Prayer is nothing else than union with God . . . In this
intimate union God and the soul are like two pieces of wax melted together;
they cannot be separated. This union of God with His little creature is a most
beautiful thing. It is a happiness that we cannot understand.”

I'm sure St. John Vianney’s concept
of “intimate union” involved more than five minutes on his knees before God.

So what's the point? During my
three-decade journey with Jesus, holding my glass of water, doing all the right
things I'd been taught to do to "know" God – I forgot God is a person and my relationship with Him
needs to be nurtured on more than rituals and how‑to's. For too long, God
longed to catch a whiff of my prayers while I satisfied myself with tossing a
few words in His direction.

What is the solution to finding
intimacy with God? I think it is simple. Until we tire of holding a stupid
glass of sea water, until we weary of chasing elusive dreams, until we beg the
Holy Spirit, "Stir within me a longing to come to Jesus," our minds
will shut down after five minutes of, "Lord, bless me, mine and
ours."

Relationship‑nurturing prayer,
entering into His presence with that fragrant aroma He savors, is not something
we do by our own strength, will, or self‑imposed schedules. The Lord Jesus said
those who would worship God must do so in spirit and truth. Aromatic prayer is
a supernatural event, a sacred and
mystical communion with the Almighty, enabled only by and through His grace.
"Unless the Lord builds the house," the Psalmist recognized,
"its builders labor in vain" (Psalm 127:1). Unless the Lord revives
our hearts to love Him, to seek Him as a deer pants for water, we will content
ourselves with ritual and form.

That's why I am convinced it's so
vitally important that I continue to ask, seek, and knock at heaven's gate
until the Lord draws me deeper into those ocean waters. That kind of prayer –
prayer to grow more in love Him every day, is my answer to a long history of
self‑satisfaction with rote and form. It's my answer against choosing other
things I often believe more important than to sit like Mary at the Master’s
feet (see St. Luke 10:39-41).